Flashback: 'My teacher remembered what it was like to be young'
Weatherman Piet Paulusma (60) received chemistry and physics from Gerke van der Wagen. He was the perfect school camp companion.
Picture: Fred van Diem
“As a teenager, my interest in the weather was mainly focused on the question: rain suit to school or not? After primary school I went to secondary school in Franeker together with my fraternal twin brother Lume. From Tzum it was about six kilometers by bike.
Gerke van der Wagen was my physics and chemistry teacher in grades 2, 3 and 4. In MAVO-3 we went with the class at school camp to Oudemirdum, in the southwest of Friesland. Together with Gerke and the gym teacher we cycled to camping de Waps. Halfway through the afternoon we turned out to have cycled terribly wrong; we had gotten stuck on the wrong side of a wide canal in front of a barnyard. Gerke got off his bicycle and had a chat with the farmer. And then - as if it had been directed - the farmer took us across with a pram.
Relaxed
In the same week Ajax became national champion. Gerke arranged for us to watch the deciding game with the class in the village hall. Gerke was the ideal teacher to have a pleasant holiday week. He was just relaxed, looked on the spot what was possible and did not clutter the week with activities. As a teacher he was sturdy, but you could also have fun with him. He had a certain nonchalance and remembered what it was like to be young.
Countryside child
It was not obvious that I would become a weatherman. When I was just acquainted, a HAVO teacher gave me a rehearsal of high and low pressure areas. 'Please Piet: you had a 4.' As a country child I liked to look for eggs and I always looked out; what is the weather like? From 1979 onwards I noticed that my own ideas about the weather did not always correspond with the usual ones, but sometimes turned out to be correct. During the Eleventh Fever of 1996, I announced severe frosts, when everyone said it would thaw. I was allowed to give a presentation for SBS and my idea to do that outside 'in the weather' was new and caught on.
Sinterklaas
I sometimes see Gerke at a reunion or when I'm in Leeuwarden, where he lives. We like each other. We have that casual attitude in common. We were also both Sinterklaas sometimes: a role that you have to play seriously and calmly, we both can do that well. ”
GERKE VAN DER WAGEN (71) worked from 1969 to 1999 as a chemistry and physics teacher at the AMS comprehensive school in Franeker. “I could not have predicted that Piet would become a TV weather forecaster. It was a fairly unremarkable student. His twin brother Lume was the noisiest of the two. ”
